Song of Solomon Chapter
4 Homework Assignment
Up until this chapter (and again, after this chapter)
Milkman remains a passive character who is hard to pin down, in terms of
personality and values. We get
some insight during this chapter here.
As you read, think about Milkman as a character, especially considering
his relationship with Hagar and his conversation with Guitar (102-106) in this
chapter:
To what extent is Milkman himself responsible for feeling
that his life is “boring” and “pointless” (107)? To what extent is his family, his circumstances, his
community to blame?
For this homework, please allow the 4 discussion leaders to
post and then try to comment on what
one of them said.
The four discussion leaders are: Laura, Neethi, Emma, Daniella
Both Milkman and his family/community are to blame for his feelings about having a "boring" and "pointless" life. Throughout this chapter, Milkman has proven that he is sick of his life and finds little, if any, joy in what he used to. As Laura said before, he had concluded to the reader that he is basically finished loving and being a part of Hagar's life. Since christmas is coming along, he feels obligated to get her a gift, but cannot decide what to give her, as long as it would not "give her ideas about marriage", but instead be something she can "remember him by" (91), like a final parting gift. Milkman can be blamed for the ending of his relationship with Hagar because it reveals his horrible commitment issues and his childish ways. But his family can also be blamed because he has never seen a healthy relationship; his father abuses his mother and his mother was possibly in love with her father.
ReplyDeleteGuitar's ideas about how Milkman is not a "serious" person are extremely true, especially from his example about how Milkman would never prosper in the conditions in which his family and race in America survived under. Guitar basically says to Milkman that he cannot live under pressure and rules, from his hypothetical example of Milkman living in "Montgomery, Alabama", and he says, "If things ever got tough, you'd melt" (104). This also goes along with the theme of names, and that Milkmans whole family has forgotten their origin and name, and tries to conform to create a black middle class. Milkman is trying to stray from his heritage and history and even family because he sees them all as boring and irrelevant, but instead he starts wasting his life away by surrounding himself with drugs, alcohol and partying even at the age of 31; he cannot grow up.
I like the points you made Emma-- especially the two about how Milkman cannot grow up as he is still trying to go "wherever the party is" (106), even at age 31, and how he loses interest in his relationship with Hagar. I thought these were good pieces of evidence of how Milkman is primarily responsible for his own boredom with life. I think his inability to commit to any serious relationships with people, his arrogance and his close-mindedness is what mainly causes this boredom. Many times throughout this chapter and chapter 3, he mentions how he never has to work for anything (love, money etc) and subsequently finds himself dissatisfied with his life. Also, he has no idea about his future and does not know who he really is (much like Happy!) and as a result is unhappy with his current life because he has no real goals to achieve.
DeleteI agree with the point you make about Milkman being constantly dissatisfied with his life, Emma. I think this also has to do with what we talked about in class today. His reluctance to let go of his past, which although was seemingly horrible, does not let him venture to look towards the future. This knowledge of his frightful and unstable childhood can not compare to whatever is facing him in the future. Because of his unstable and somewhat exciting past, he can't fathom what could happen in the future. This idea of not being able to look forward to the future is expressed when Morrison says, "Not knowing where he was going--just where he had already been--troubled him"(32). This quote says that he is too occupied to look past his troubled childhood to look forward to the future. For that reason I agree with both Jessica and Emma about how it is Milkman's fault for his bored state of being. However, this also is a result of his relationship with Macon and his family, as he was the one who caused Milkman's childhood to be so unstable.
DeleteI agree that the reason for some of Milkman's issues are a result of his family life. Not only the lack of healthy relationships, like his mother's abuse, and his commitment issues but also his refusal to grow up. In this chapter, Milkman is shown as being the only one that tries to hold on to being a kid and not taking responsibility while everyone else was "going in the direction he was coming from" and moving on. Even Guitar no longer went to parties or did drugs. Milkman resents all of this maturity and seriousness, and his family life is a reason for this resentment as he says "My old man is serious. My sisters are serious. ANd nobody is more serious than my mother." He also says that serious is another word for miserable, and it seems this is because Milkman's dysfunctional family has caused it to become engraved in Milkman's head that being serious only leads to sadness and disappointment.
DeleteI believe that Milkman is more to blame than you think. Milkman plans on telling Hagar, "If you loved somebody as he did her, you had to think of them first. You couldn't be selfish with somebody you loved" (98). And then after writing a letter he, "did sign it with love, but it was the word 'gratitude'" (99). He feels very happy with his response afterwards, but his idea of what love is and who he is, is extremely twisted. And you cannot say that he does not have role models. "He had never loved his mother, but had always known that she had loved him" (79). His mother is an example of unconditional love, and he knows that, so he is at fault for not understanding what love is.
DeleteI like, and agree, with many of the points brought up by Emma. However, no one has discussed how outrageously abnormal and interesting Milkman's family is. When reading Song of Solomon I would say that not only the reader, but also the characters in the book can see how strange the Dead family is. How milkman gained his nickname, the tensions in ruth and macons marriage, and pilotes lack of navel are all out of the everyday and ordinary. So, to me, it is strange that Milkman would call his life "boring' because there is so much going on around him, and so much revolving around him that I would be more inclined to call his life exciting and hectic.
DeleteI agree very much with Emma's points. I believe Milkman doesn't think he has any true aim in life, making his life pointless: "there was nothing he wanted bad enough to risk anything for, inconvenience himself for" (107). He doesn't really know what to do with his life, and doesn't think his life will ever have a point to it. In order to give it a point, he thinks he should find a wife, though not to Hagar, leading to his split from her. However, even in gesticulating about his future, he finds no excitement: "There had to be something better to look forward to" (107).
DeleteI'll have to agree with everybody on Emma's post for this one. I think that Milkman's commitment issues are in fact the reason why his life appears to be so boring. However, his life is extremely interesting although it can sometimes be a drag. But his disinterest with Hagar is for the most part, his own responsibility. Because I am doing this post, late, I get to use knowledge from later in the book (haha :p). When Magdalene called Lena blows up at Milkman, she says that he peed on a twig and then it grew into a tree. The tree symbolizes Hagar and her responsibility because she fell in love with a man who doesn't give a pile of swan shit about her! If she hadn't done so, Milkman would not have had the revelation that his life was so boring!
DeleteIt's mainly Milman's own fault, as Guitar had said, he doesn't care about anything that doesn't personally affect him. He thinks nothing is his own fault and he always gets what he wants without struggle but becasue of that he thinks it is boring. Like the whole episode with Hagar and how she reciprocated his feelings back after all those years, and didn't put up a fight anymore, he thought the thrill of the chase was over. He feels that he needs to show dominance in order to feel a thrill. As Rousseau said, society corrpts the person, and that's something like what Milkman is thinking; it's everybody else's fault. I suppose it could also be partially his father's fault and how his father isn't exactly the best role model. Considering how his father gave him the advice of "owning others".
ReplyDeleteWhat a dysfunctional story...
I agree with Daniella's point that Milkman's boring life is his own fault. Milkman is trying to fill his boring and pointless life with parties and girls but those tangible things only can satisfy him for some time. Milkman has not found his true calling in his life. He said that "if he had to spend the rest of his life thinking about rents and property, he'd lose his mind"(107). The corporate style of life Milkman's father has is not suitable for Milkman. Milkman does not have the drive to better his life. Morrison writes "There was nothing he wanted bad enough to risk everything for, inconvenience himself for" (107). Milkman needs to get out of his own bubble and go out into the world and find something he likes. He can't just stay at home for the rest of his life.
Deletematthew
All in all, when it came time to do something serious like possibly be in a committed relationship with Hagar he breaks it of and PAYS her! He sounds like a he's paying a prostitute for having a good time. He wasted nearly a fifteen years of her life and then walks away saying that he cares too much about her and that she deserves better. Not only did he mistake his love for a physical attraction, he was never serious about her to begin with. He even had women on the side while with Hagar.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, I pity Milkman, and I feel sad for those around him who have to put up with him.
I think that Milkman is totally to blame for everything he is unhappy with in his life, people from all over the world come from way worse family situations and at least try to make the best out of it. He blames them, the life he was dealt, for his problems. He can't grasp the concept of hard work pays off, he instead waits for whatever he wants to come to him. The only time he ever worked hard for something (that we know of yet) was Hagar, and once he got her and spent fifteen years of his life with her, he was bored. He worked for this token of love and since he was rejected so many times before, in his family and by her, that once the feeling was finally returned he didn't know what to do with it, and left. Blaming it on her, saying SHE was too good for him, which indirectly makes Hagar feel like it's her fault for him not loving her anymore. I can understand how growing up the way he did must be really difficult for any one and trying to make the best out of it would be hard work- something Milkman just doesn't see as an important part of life.
ReplyDeleteI originally thought that Milkman's problem was that he doesn't take responsibility and blames others for his boredom. However now I think he simply doesn't care about anything in his life. It's as if he is STILL waiting for his life to fully begin. He treats everything that comes his way with indifference and he only seems capable of thinking about himself. When he sees Guitar is caught up in some sort of secretive thing his reaction is not to be worried for his friend's safety, instead he is mad that he's been cut out from part of Guitar's life.
ReplyDeletePartly this is him not taking responsibility; Milkman lives his life on the surface by avoiding hard things and doing what makes himself (and not usually anyone else) happy at the time. A good example of this is how he handles things with Hagar, breaking it off without any feeling. He says he does this because he's grown bored but I think the underlying reason is that "she placed duty squarely in the middle of their relationship (98)" and duty is what he shies away from in his life.
Morrison is trying to say that if you never take anything on in life, and instead run away from anything not easy, than your life will never reach past the surface and make you happy. Even Milkman admits that he has no connection to the place he lives when he says that if it were like Montgomery, he'd just leave. To which Guitar responds, "if things ever got tough, you'd melt (104)." This is Milkman's problem and entirely his own fault.